I've got a million other things I should be doing, but this one is too rich to pass up. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, A VA nurse wrote a letter to the editor of Alibi, an alternative newsweekly in New Mexico. Here's the quote that got her in trouble, I think:
We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit. Otherwise, many more of us will be facing living hell in these times.
(Emphasis added)Well, her bosses at the VA decided this might constitute
sedition, so they took her work computer to see if she had used government property to write the letter. Although she was ultimately cleared of wrongdoing, the New Mexico ACLU is
demanding an apology.
This is something I would expect to happen in a country like, say,
Singapore, but I thought we had this thing called the First Amendment that protected us from this kind of nonsense.
Anyway, the story doesn't end there. Although the Associated Press
lived up to its end of the reporting bargain, the MSM has declined so far to run the story, as far as I can tell.
How in the world is this not a newsworthy story? I guess that whole news judgment thing I learned
in school didn't take. Or maybe the rules have changed since I graduated in 1998.
In case you're unfamiliar with the concept of sedition, here's the
definition. As the
Wikipedia entry indicates, "The term is deprecated in most countries, though equivalent language may still be in use in totalitarian and fascist jurisdictions." Hmmm....
But according to
FindLaw, the U.S. Code still includes laws against "Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities."
IANAL, but
this section is the closest I could find to what Ms. Berg may have been accused of.
Ok then, since I work for
the state, if I say that I think that any idiots in the U.S. government who are running around investigating people for sedition should be frogmarched out of the country, I guess I can expect a call from the FBI. I'll keep you posted.
